


The Anatomical Position (please color inside the lines remix)

by celeste9



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Established Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Insecure Clint, M/M, Remix, School, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint lets Steve talk him into taking an art class with him, he's pretty sure he's going to regret it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Anatomical Position (please color inside the lines remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harcourt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harcourt/gifts).
  * Inspired by [please color inside the lines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/550887) by [harcourt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harcourt/pseuds/harcourt). 



> Thank you firstly to harcourt for writing the original fic (which is wonderful and you should all read it) and letting me try my hand at remixing it, and thanks also to Sophie for being an absolutely fabulous beta. Her suggestions made this fic so much better!

“God damn it,” Clint muttered when he opened the fridge in search of the spaghetti he’d meant to have for dinner and discovered that someone had eaten it. Communal kitchens were the worst; no one had any respect for boundaries. Clint would never eat something that wasn’t his. Honest, he wouldn’t. Unless he was incredibly hungry, or it was going bad, or the owner seemed to have forgotten they’d left the food anyway.  


Right. Clint found a piece of scrap paper and doodled a picture of a frowning Thor, finishing it off with the words, “WHAT FIEND HAST TAKENETH MY SPAGHETTI” over the top. Thor was in Asgard, but his special kind of dramatics was always entertaining. Clint missed Thor when he wasn’t around; the tower always felt emptier without him.  


Clint left the picture there for the guilty party to find and then ate half a wrapped-up sub that had been shoved on a shelf, way in the back.  


It was only fair. Besides, the bread was getting soggy. He was doing the sub’s owner a favor.  


The next morning he found a sad little apology written underneath cartoon Thor, in Steve’s careful handwriting. Even without that, and the fact he’d signed it, Clint would have known who’d left the note. Only Steve would actually apologize for stealing someone’s cold, leftover spaghetti.  


It took Steve a bit longer than Clint would have thought to catch on to the fact that it was Clint leaving the drawings. He’d figured the smartass comments would give him away. Maybe Steve thought it was Tony.  


There was a simple way to remedy that erroneous assumption. It was late Sunday evening and Clint was sitting in bed next to Tony, who was sprawled naked on his front. They’d had a surprisingly lazy day, taking advantage of the lack of crises to relax and, well, screw each other’s brains out, mostly, culminating with pizza in bed. They’d only spent five minutes arguing over the toppings, which was possibly a record.  


Clint was considering it a compliment that Tony hadn’t immediately reached for the fancy phone he’d lost somewhere in the bed sheets during their latest round. He leaned his back against the headboard, Tony’s face next to his thigh, and drew a lewd picture of him on a napkin.  


“You made my dick too small,” Tony complained, peering at it, and Clint laughed.  


He smudged over the pencil lines and redid Tony’s penis so it hung between his legs like a racehorse’s or something.  


“That’s more like it.”  


Clint pondered sticking this up on the fridge and then decided that no, Tony would totally draw a picture of himself, super hung, and leave it around for the others to ‘admire’. So he reached onto the nightstand and found a receipt stuck between the pages of a book and instead drew Tony, propped on a table and looking the way he did sometimes when he’d spent too long in his workshop without caffeine or alcohol. (It wasn’t a pretty sight.) He added large letters that declared, “I HAVE INVENTED A SOURCE OF INFINITE ENERGY”. He left it the next day for Steve to find, wondering if he’d get the hint.  


-  


Steve wanted to go back to school. He seemed to have this notion that he needed to make something of himself, to do something outside of the Avengers. Clint thought that was kind of bullshit, but he could sort of get it. Steve had grown up in the Depression, and then he’d gone to war. It made sense he’d want to have something for himself.  


Plus there was the whole ‘functioning member of society’ aspect. Steve was too damned responsible for his own good.  


The problem was that Bruce said, “You should take someone with you. You know, just to start, until you get comfortable.”  


The problem was that Steve said, “Clint, will you come to school with me?”  


Only one class, they said. Steve could take the rest on his own. Just one class to help him out.  


Clint didn’t do school. He had started out at this crappy public school where all of the teachers were basically there just to get their paychecks. Clint had never liked sitting, he liked to be doing things, and he’d never really seen the point and no one had bothered to explain it to him. So he hadn’t done well and his dad had laughed off the notes from his teachers, ruffling his hair and joking about him having his mom’s brains.  


At the orphanage, after his parents died, it was worse. There were too many kids and no one cared and so Clint… really didn’t care. Barney laughed, just like their dad, and made jokes and called him dumb. When Barney broke them out and they joined the circus, it was pretty much over. No one there paid any attention to whether or not Clint could recite all the capitals or remember what a prime number was.  


The point was, Clint and school were over. Aggravatingly, Steve and his stupid imploring blue eyes weren’t getting that. Clint liked Steve. He was a good guy to have on your team, he always had your back, but that wasn’t really the heart of it. Steve had this sadness about him, like he’d been through the wars, and, well, he had been. It wasn’t like he moped around, because he didn’t, but he’d get this far away look in his eyes sometimes that made even Clint feel depressed.  


Clint wasn’t a particularly nurturing person; he couldn’t even keep a plant alive (there had been a plant in Coulson’s office that Clint had adopted after the Loki thing, his reaction to finding it wilted in his room when he returned from an op would likely have made the SHIELD psychologists salivate if they’d known about it). There was still something about Steve, though, that made Clint feel weirdly protective towards him without entirely understanding why. He just knew that Steve had been through hell and Clint didn’t want him to have to go through hell again.  


Clint wanted to be Steve’s friend and that wasn’t a phenomenon that happened to him terribly often.  


That didn’t mean, though, that Clint wanted to go to school just because Steve asked him to. Steve shrugged off Clint’s excuses and short of shouting, “I FAILED SCHOOL, DON’T MAKE ME GO BACK THERE,” Clint wasn’t sure what else he could do. Especially when Steve remained entirely uninterested in being accompanied by someone who was not only good at school, but actually liked it, like Bruce.  


It was hard to say no to Steve. He was so sincere all the time and probably basically the perfect friend. Steve would probably do anything for a friend, because that was who he was. People did shit they didn’t want to do for their friends. Especially when the friend in question was Captain fucking America. God damn it.  


Clint said yes. Clint was going back to school.  


-  


It got off to a bad start. They had only just sat down to the first class when Clint looked around, watching all the other students take out fancy pencils and charcoals and all sorts of artsy stuff Clint couldn’t even name. All he had was a crummy number two pencil he’d stolen from Bruce’s lab so that he wouldn’t actually come to class with nothing. It was the first day and Clint already felt like an idiot. Most of the other students barely even looked old enough to be in college but they were going to be able to label Clint the stupid one. On the first day.  


Steve loaned him some charcoals and half an eraser. Clint kind of hated him a little bit.  


The model was a perky little brunette girl with freckles. Clint watched the other students carefully reproducing her pose. He watched Steve, frowning in concentration as he drew the slope of the girl’s shoulders.  


Clint looked at the model. He looked at the blank paper in front of him.  


He drew Pepper the way she’d looked that morning, arms crossed and her mouth pursed in a bow as she got ready to chew out Tony.  


-  


In theory, they were supposed to be listening to a beleaguered-looking agent explain proper procedure when it came to post-mission paperwork. In actuality, Tony was watching Clint draw a series of images depicting Director Fury slowly exploding. Clint figured SHIELD should be happy they’d showed up at all.  


Tony said, “I think it’s good you’re taking that class with Steve.”  


“Yeah?”  


“Yeah. I mean, you’re actually good at this.”  


“It’s not like I’m gonna take this one class and suddenly change my life. I’ll still just be working for SHIELD.”  


Tony shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.”  


Clint looked up from his cartoon so he could see Tony. The agent was hesitating in his monologue, glancing to the back of the room at where Clint and Tony were sitting. He didn’t say anything, though, which Clint found vaguely disappointing. He liked the agents that showed they had some balls. This one probably wasn’t good for anything but lectures on procedure.  


“Is this supposed to be one of those ‘you could be so much more than you are’ speeches?” Clint asked.  


“I just don’t like seeing talents go to waste.”  


Clint quickly devoted his attention back to Fury the human bomb because it was easier than looking at Tony, Tony who was being completely and weirdly serious, and it was easier than letting himself think about disappointing his genius boyfriend. Or whatever the hell Tony was, because sometimes Clint had no idea.  


Tony was apparently through with his brief fit of seriousness though, because he said, “Can we give this to Fury? Can I do it? I’m having this urge to go old-school and make copies to plaster all over the walls.”  


Clint snickered. “Get me something to color it in with and you’re on.”  


Colors would really make the whole thing pop.  


-  


When Clint got his first bad grade back from class, he tossed it into the trash and then let Tony fuck him into the mattress until he stopped thinking about it.  


When he got his second bad grade, he turned over the paper and sketched a caricature of the professor on the back, exaggerating her big sad eyes behind her hipster glasses and her skinny jeans and her five thousand layers of clothing. Next to it he wrote, in the style of a personals ad, _WLTM a big strong man to complete me (up the ass)._  


Natasha caught him doing it and said, “That’s constructive. I’m glad to see your mindset seems to be about the same as it was the last time you were in school.” She got this very intent expression on her face as she studied the picture, like she was thinking, and then went on, “Although, when you think about it, I expect there’s some sort of social commentary to be had here, considering this is coming from a man who likes taking it up the ass. That’s probably what you were going for, right? College student and all.”  


Clint balled up the stupid thing and threw it away, feeling slightly ashamed (not that he would ever admit that to Nat). He was only sorry he missed Natasha’s reaction to the retaliatory picture he drew of her and hung up on the refrigerator.  


Once Tony caught Clint with a drawing that had “this was not the assignment” written on it, one of the drawings he’d actually turned in. He opened his mouth to say something but Clint shoved the paper back where it came from and said quickly, “It’s not real school. I’m just gonna drop out anyway.”  


Tony didn’t say anything and it was almost worse.  


-  


As Clint watched Steve slam things around in the kitchen and mutter about people not replacing the milk when they’d finished it, he found himself wondering why Steve had wanted to go to school anyway when it only seemed to put him in a bad mood.  


“I set the workshop on fire today,” Tony said cheerfully, dropping down into a chair at the kitchen table.  


“Are we supposed to be surprised?” Steve asked, slicing his sandwich in half with more viciousness than was required.  


“Pepper was there, that always makes it more exciting.” Tony reached across the table to pat Clint’s hand. “And what did you learn in school today, honey?”  


Clint adopted his best posh-sounding accent, like how he imagined people with summer homes in the Hamptons would sound. “The anatomical position,” he said, sticking his nose up, and Tony sniggered.  


“I’ll show you the anatomical position,” he said, leering and waggling his eyebrows in a way that made Clint snort into his soda.  


“I don’t think that actually means anything,” Natasha said, entering the kitchen and getting a glass out of the cabinet.  


“It doesn’t,” Steve agreed, looking somewhat affronted. (School was _serious business_.)  


“Actually,” Bruce said, and what the hell was with everyone barging in everywhere all the time? “The anatomical position refers to a particular resting state of the body, it’s like a reference so anatomical terms make sense. Like this.” He stood straight with his arms at his sides, palms forward, and then seemed to realize everyone was staring at him. He fixed his glasses and hid his face in the refrigerator.  


Clint took it back. Bruce was welcome to barge in wherever he wanted. “See, Steve? I was actually being smarter than you.”  


There was a frustrated, annoyed line forming between Steve’s eyebrows. “The class is introduction to the figure.”  


“Right. Where we learn about the anatomical position,” Clint repeated in that same silly accent, because it made Tony snicker again.  


Natasha just shook her head as she poured herself a glass of water. “Your sense of humor is the worst.”  


“My sense of humor is too discerning for you to appreciate,” Clint said snootily.  


“No, it stinks, actually,” Steve said, biting into his sandwich, and Clint gave him the finger.  


Steve just glared at him but Clint grinned right back. He already had a new cartoon forming in his head that Steve was going to _love_.  


-  


Steve took school incredibly seriously. He acted like it was a privilege and like he had to make it count for something. He got kind of pissy when Clint didn’t do the same.  


Clint thought about trying to be like Steve. He thought about sitting quietly in class and drawing what he was supposed to. He thought about going to an art store and buying his own set of charcoals. He pictured himself walking into one of those little specialty art shops, wandering the aisles like he actually knew what the hell he was doing. He tried to picture himself next to all those hipster artsy types and couldn’t even believe the image in his own head.  


So he didn’t try. If he didn’t try, it wouldn’t matter if he failed. If he was doing his own thing no one could really judge him on it, right? Steve could get his stupid A pluses and Clint could get his “not the assignment” notes, or he could just not turn in anything at all.  


It wasn’t like it mattered. He wasn’t a real student and it wasn’t real school. He was only going to drop out.  


-  


Artists liked to pretend that drawing nudes was somehow high-class. Like, they were paying homage to the human form or some shit. Clint preferred to call a spade a spade. Or, a dick a dick, if you preferred.  


He wasn’t making art. He was making porn.  


Steve was completely scandalized the first time he came over to check out Clint’s workspace. He had probably thought Clint was actually drawing the model, bless his heart.  


“That’s not the pose!” Steve sounded horrified. His eyes darted around like he was worried someone would see that Clint was sketching porn in public.  


“No, but it’s certainly a more interesting pose,” Clint said.  


He stuck it to the fridge when they got home.  


“The hands are actually pretty impressive,” Steve allowed, after he’d stared at it for a while, and Clint beamed.  


-  


“Hey,” Clint said, bringing his day’s efforts to Tony to look at. “Hey, do you think we could try this out?”  


Tony narrowed his eyes at the drawing, tilting it a few different ways like he was making sure he was looking at it from the right angle. “Did you see this on the internet? This position is new even to me, and I’m not sure it’s anatomically possible.”  


“Oh, it’s possible, all right,” Clint said with a leer. “I’m the expert on the anatomical position now, remember?”  


Tony grinned at him. “Yeah. You know, your schoolwork’s way more exciting than Steve’s.”  


“Also more educational,” Clint said, and they proceeded to test the limits of their flexibility and to reach a verdict on whether or not the internet had lied.  


It was _so_ anatomically possible.  


-  


The one thing Clint did like about school was that it was perfectly fine to harbor a coffee addiction. Everyone had one. He could drag Steve after class and wait in line and feel just like everyone else. Coffee was very non-judgey. He could walk around with it and feel like a student, not like the dumb kid who was only getting passed along because no one knew what else to do with him.  


“You know,” Clint said to Steve while they sat with their coffees and watched the kids play Frisbee on the lawn. “If you want to fit in, you should probably make an effort to, well, fit in.”  


“I fit in,” Steve insisted, replacing the lid on his coffee and hazarding a sip. He took another, so it mustn’t have been too hot. “You’re the one who turns in your work all covered in scribbles, when you even bother to hand in anything at all.”  


“That’s not what I meant.” Clint waved vaguely at the kids, goofing around and laughing. “School’s not just about school.”  


“Right.”  


“No, I mean it. These kids here, this is what it’s about. This is why people who are sixty still speak rapturously about the good old days in college.”  


Steve looked dubious. “Because they wasted their time playing a sport that’s not even a real sport?”  


“Exactly,” Clint said, but Steve continued to look unconvinced.  


“There isn’t even really a point to all the games they play, not that I can see.”  


“The point is that there’s no point.” Hey, that was almost wise, right? That was, like, Yoda wisdom.  


Steve laughed a little. “Thanks for the advice.” But as he continued to watch the students toss around the Frisbee, his gaze edged into wistful and Clint thought that maybe he had missed something along the way.  


-  


Clint got a note. It read, “You are missing a number of assignments.” It helpfully listed them. Clint crumpled it up.  


-  


“I missed my porn today,” Tony said, flopping down on the bed. “My boardroom is going to look sadly empty tomorrow with nothing to hang.”  


“Real students don’t draw porn.”  


“You aren’t a real student.”  


Clint knew Tony didn’t mean it the way Clint took it, but it still pissed him off. “No, I’m just your stupid drop-out fuck-buddy who can’t even pass a fucking introductory art class,” he gritted out between his teeth and then left, slamming the door.  


-  


He tried. He really did. He thought about Tony saying, _you’re good at this,_ and he thought about wasted talents, and he thought about the casual way Tony had said Clint wasn’t a real student, like he’d stopped believing Clint could do anything at all. Like he’d accepted this was all a waste of time because that was how Clint treated it, and why should Tony think anything different?  


He told himself sometimes that he didn’t care what Tony thought, that they were only having some fun and it didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d stopped believing that, or even if he ever had.  


Mostly Clint thought about his dad offhandedly calling him dumb and how Clint had always believed it must be true.  


Clint concentrated and he drew the model, he drew the model posed properly. He got even more charcoal dust all over himself than usual, streaked on his clothes and his skin and he’d swear there was even some dust in his hair.  


But then he thought about the professor sitting down with his meager offering and marking it all up in red. He pictured her scoffing at it and wondering how he’d even come to be in this class when he clearly had no idea what he was doing. He thought about Steve and the way he knew exactly how to shade things, the way he scrawled that little _Steve_ in the corner of all of his work. He thought about Steve and the A plus pluses he was surely getting, no matter how many times he said it didn’t work like that in college.  


Clint stopped trying.  


-  


It was November in New York. November in New York meant it was _cold_.  


Yet there was still a group of kids on the lawn outside the art building having a water balloon fight. Clint wasn’t sure whether he thought they were total idiots or totally awesome.  


“Why would they do that?” Steve asked, clearly leaning towards the ‘total idiots’ end of the spectrum. “It’s _November_. They’re going to be freezing.”  


Clint looked at Steve, zipped up cozily in his jacket, clutching his sketchbook and his special little art folder to his chest. Then he looked at the kids, running madly over the grass and laughing as they pelted each other with water balloons.  


It wasn’t right. Steve was too uptight and he was missing out and just because Clint’s experience with school had been utter misery didn’t mean Steve’s should be, too.  


He ducked a badly aimed balloon and dashed over to one of the buckets, grabbing two for himself.  


Steve’s eyes widened and he started running, but Clint beaned him anyway.  


“Clint!” Steve spluttered, water dripping down, shaking out his folder. “What the hell! You’re going to ruin my work, you can’t get this _wet_ , it will smudge and it took _hours_. Paper gets soggy, you know, and when it gets soggy stuff gets wrecked. Just because you don’t care about school doesn’t mean I don’t care and damn it, it’s freezing! A person could get hypothermia out here!”  


Clint snickered, his shoulders shaking as he gazed at Steve shivering on the sidewalk, face irate. “I know, I’m a terrible person. You gonna let me just get away with that, Rogers?”  


Steve glared at him and then very carefully set down his bag and his schoolwork underneath a bench. He walked slowly back into the melee. “Oh, you’re on, Barton.”  


So by the time the water balloons had run out and the kids had dispersed in search of coffee and hot chocolate, they were both soaked and fucking freezing and covered in dirt and grass stains, but Steve had looked positively gleeful a few times there, usually right before he got Clint in the face.  


He’d laughed, and he didn’t look so tense anymore, and however Steve decided to get back at Clint for this (because he would, no doubt about it), Clint decided it was absolutely worth it.  


-  


“Shit,” Clint said, juggling too many things as he and Steve started their walk back to Stark Tower. A piece of paper he’d sworn had been stowed safely in his bag got caught in a gust of wind and Clint lunged for it, only to get caught up by his bag sliding down his shoulder.  


“Let me,” Steve said, but as he grabbed for the paper (which probably wasn’t important anyway, because that would be Clint’s luck), he smoothly stuck a leg out and toppled Clint to the ground.  


“You fucker!”  


They spent the next five minutes wrestling each other on the ground until Steve pinned Clint on his back and refused to be budged. Shit, Steve was heavy. Stupid super serum giving him super muscles. Clint let his head rest there in the dirt and caught his breath.  


Steve’s hair was wind-blown and his cheeks were flushed, probably more from the cold than the exertion. He actually looked happy.  


“Was that retaliation for the water balloon fight?” Clint asked.  


“It was _cold_ , Clint,” Steve said, which was answer enough. “You got my sketchbook wet.” He didn’t sound irritated anymore, though. Kind of fond, instead, with only a tiny bit of lingering annoyance.  


“It was fun.”  


“Maybe,” Steve relented, a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. He offered Clint a hand up. “It’s only that everything’s different now.”  


“Yeah?”  


But Steve remained silent and didn’t elaborate. Clint thought about the careful way Steve handled his belongings, like a person who was used to making do with not enough, and guessed that maybe he understood anyway.  


“Beer pong,” Clint said to lighten the mood. “Beer pong is where it’s at.”  


“Beer pong?” Steve asked, zipping his jacket a little higher. “Is that like lawn darts?”  


“Not really. It’s an indoor game you play when you’re wasted. A drinking game, basically.”  


“So then, it doesn’t matter if you know how to play or if you’re actually any good. Because everyone’s drunk anyway.”  


Clint gave that some thought. “Huh, kind of, yeah. Except I’m still completely awesome at it. Like, _awesome_.”  


“I don’t think I’ll play it, though,” Steve said, getting that vaguely melancholy, longing expression he had sometimes. “I don’t foresee a whole lot of parties with classmates in my future.”  


Clint wanted to say that maybe there would be if he hadn’t been such a snob about the pick-up baseball games ( _that’s not real baseball, Clint! it isn’t even stickball!_ ) or if he’d ever listened all the times Clint had tried to get him to join in something. He didn’t say it, though, because he remembered that it was really some dude named Stephen Markham who was enrolled in all those art classes. He thought it probably sucked a little to be Stephen Markham when you didn’t even know who Stephen Markham was, except that he couldn’t be Steve Rogers.  


So instead he said, “I don’t know, I bet we could wrangle in Tony, for sure, and Nat likes to try to pretend like she could actually ever beat me. Bruce would play, if we’re all doing it, though probably sober, which isn’t really fair.”  


Steve smiled, and it was kind of brilliant. “Great.”  


-  


They got a week-long break near the end of the semester. Since it turned out that Steve was actually a giant nerd, he spent his vacation rationing out the time between all his school projects. Clint took the opportunity to doodle Steve in his red, white, and blues with big Poindexter glasses and tacked it up on the refrigerator.  


“You could be really good,” Steve said, refraining from even commenting on the contents of the sketch.  


“If only I’d apply myself, right?” Clint grinned.  


“Yeah,” Steve said, very solemn. He looked a bit like he was going to start lecturing Clint on the merits of believing in yourself except that he didn’t quite want to go there.  


A fact for which Clint was immensely grateful.  


“It’s just, I don’t think anyone thinks you’re stupid except for you.” And then Steve walked out of the kitchen.  


-  


Class started up again. Clint decided it really wasn’t worth the effort to even fake like he was an actual student.  


Steve tried to insist his A plus plus was only a B plus but he wasn’t fooling anyone, certainly not Clint.  


Clint got another note that told him how long he had to turn in his missing assignments. He hung it up on the fridge for everyone to admire.  


The thing was, no one cared. It wasn’t real. Tony waxed nostalgic about failing a class once (there had been explosions involved, apparently) and Natasha bragged about how awesome she’d always been and no one cared. Clint was going to be a drop-out (again) and it was cool. No one cared and he didn’t either.  


Or at least, Clint thought no one cared. He was huddled over on the far side of the bed with Tony, avoiding the wet spot and drifting in that quiet lull between post-sex high and sleep, when Tony murmured, “You could’ve passed that class.”  


Clint squeezed his eyes closed and wondered if Tony would think he was asleep if he didn’t say anything.  


Tony poked him in the side. “I know you’re awake, Barton.”  


“I’m really not,” Clint said, trying to hide in the pillow, but then Tony actually shoved him. “Ow, hey,” Clint protested, rolling over onto his side. “What the hell, Tony?”  


It was too dark for Clint to see much more than the vague outline of Tony’s features and the glint of his eyes. “I don’t know why you’d take that class and then not turn half your shit in.”  


“I took it for Steve.”  


“That’s bullshit,” Tony said, sounding angry.  


“Fuck, Tony, what do you want me to say?” Clint turned onto his back and looked up at the ceiling so he didn’t have to see even Tony’s outline. “That I decided I was going to fail that class before I even started?”  


Tony was silent for long enough that Clint started to hope that would be the end of it. Then he said, “Fuck. Why the fuck would you do that?”  


“Because it didn’t matter.”  


“It _did_ matter. It mattered to you, but you just…” Tony breathed out in a long exhale that sounded loud in the quiet. “Whatever. I don’t know why I bothered, you clearly don’t care what I think and I hate talking about this shit so just forget it.”  


Clint stared at the ceiling and wondered how this had happened. He wondered when he and Tony had become an actual thing that wasn’t just… friends with benefits and he wondered when Tony had become someone he could disappoint this much.  


He wondered when Tony had become someone he could feel this bad about disappointing.  


“I’m sorry,” he said finally, whispering it into the silence.  


Tony brushed his fingers against Clint’s arm. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me.”  


-  


The next morning Tony pretended like nothing had happened and Clint was fine to go along with it. He took the note off of the fridge, though, because he couldn’t pretend it was funny anymore.  


Steve kept looking at Clint when he thought Clint wouldn’t notice. He had that ‘someone ran over my puppy’ look in his baby blues.  


He should have known Steve was plotting something. Still, when his ‘incomplete’ suddenly turned into a ‘complete’, it came as a surprise.  


“Okay, what did you do?” Clint asked Steve.  


Steve might have looked the tiniest bit embarrassed. “I didn’t do anything. It was all your work.”  


“Oh my God. You turned it in, didn’t you? You went through my stuff and you gave it to the professor?”  


“Are you mad?”  


Clint just laughed because it was hilarious, honestly. Steve couldn’t even let him fail a class he was taking as a fake student. He’d turned in Clint’s doodles and Clint’s _porn_ for a grade. “You’re really something,” he said, clapping Steve on the shoulder. “Captain fucking America, all right.”  


“You didn’t deserve to fail,” Steve said earnestly. “You didn’t deserve that.”  


Clint kind of wanted to ask what he’d done to deserve anything else, but he didn’t.  


-  


Clint’s reprinted grade sheet, with its C, was hanging proudly on the fridge. Steve had drawn a squiggly Captain America on the bottom of it, signing it _Steve Rogers_ , with a flourish.  


Clint remembered the almost shy, unsure way Steve had made that particular offering, and the pride in his face when he’d looked at his name. He’d never been able to sign any of his work with more than a Steve. Steve Rogers the Avenger wasn’t an art student and Stephen Markham the art student wasn’t the one drawing all those pictures.  


When Steve was out, Clint snuck into his room and stole a page out of his sketchbook along with some drawing pencils. He went up on the roof, the chill wind feeling brisk against the exposed skin of his face. His hands were colder than was precisely conducive for good art, but Clint was used to using his hands in non-ideal situations.  


Two hours later, he made his way back down to the kitchen. Everyone was gathered around the counter, pizza boxes stacked high, pulling plates out of the cabinet.  


“We tried calling you, but your phone was turned off,” Bruce said when Clint came in.  


“Yeah, so no complaining,” Tony added around a mouthful of pepperoni and mushroom. “Fruit does not belong on pizza, you’ll have to make do with something normal and not gross.”  


There was a little crease between Steve’s eyebrows as he asked, concerned, “Are you okay?”  


“Just peachy,” Clint said, and moved a magnet so he could hang his work right next to doodle-Steve.  


He’d drawn the Avengers from memory, the way they’d looked in that shawarma place after the Loki thing went down. They’d all just sat around that table, half-heartedly stuffing their faces, Steve looking like he would collapse into his food without the hand holding his head up. No squiggles, no jelly-limbs, no sarcastic thought bubbles. Just the anatomical position. Or, ahem, the ‘human form’. At the bottom, he’d scrawled _Clint Barton_.  


While their teammates squabbled over movie choices, Steve stood right next to Clint, the tips of his fingers hovering over the lines of the sketch. He smiled.  


Maybe school wasn’t so bad after all.  


_**End** _


End file.
